Disable, Enable, and Set the Default Custom Dictionary in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Learn how to disable, enable, and set the default custom dictionary in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Author:Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 and higher

Date Created: April 11, 2017Last Updated: April 11, 2017

Any custom dictionary that you create within
PowerPoint or any other Microsoft Office program is used by all the Office applications installed on your computer. Also, any changes made to the
list of words within a custom dictionary reflect in proofing tools of all Office applications. Each logged-in user has a default custom dictionary called RoamingCustom.dic, stored in a separate folder for each local user.

If you are running Windows 7, 8, or 10, you can find the default custom dictionary at this location:

Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\UProof

So, what exactly is a default dictionary? Let's assume you are running a
regular spell check, and encounter a word that PowerPoint flags as
misspelled. You know that the word is correctly spelled, and you choose the Add option. Any custom spellings that you add are
saved to your default dictionary. We have already established in the preceding section that every user has a default custom dictionary called
RoamingCustom.dic, but you can change your default custom dictionary to any other if you please. We will show you how to do
that later in this tutorial. There are other aspects of spell checking that you may want to explore; after
adding a ready-made 3rd party dictionary or
creating a new dictionary, you may want to disable a
custom dictionary temporarily and enable it later.

Follow these steps to learn more about enabling and disabling custom dictionaries. You will also learn how you can set a default custom
dictionary in PowerPoint 2016:

Now, click the Custom Dictionaries button (highlighted in red within Figure 2,
above). This summons the Custom Dictionaries dialog box (see Figure 3). All the custom dictionaries can be
found under Dictionary List within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box. Note that we have four dictionaries
available as highlighted in red within Figure 3. Your number of dictionaries may be different,
and that's perfectly OK.

You can now enable or disable dictionaries to be used for spell checking. To do that, just select or deselect the check-boxes preceding the
particular dictionary name, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.

Figure 4: Enable/disable custom dictionaries for spell check

To change the default custom dictionary, select any custom dictionary within the Dictionary List which you want to be used
as the default dictionary, and click the Change Default button (highlighted in red within
Figure 5) within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box.

Figure 5: Change Default button

This will set the selected dictionary to be the default dictionary. In Figure 6 you can see that
Raj&Co-MedSpelChek.dic is now set as the default dictionary, which is indicated by the word Default suffixed to it
(compare with Figure 5, above).

Figure 6: Suffixed word Default indicates the default dictionary

Note: You should have a sound reason to change your default dictionary. Most of
the time, PowerPoint expects RoamingCustom.dic to be your default dictionary. Fortunately, you
can always change back to the original default dictionary using the steps explained in this tutorial.

Once done, click the OK button within the Custom Dictionaries dialog box to save the changes you made.

Have your ever used keyboard shortcuts and sequences in PowerPoint? Or are you a complete keyboard aficionado?
Do you want to learn about some new shortcuts? Or do you want to know if your favorite keyboard shortcuts are documented?